Sand and Sorrow
by Asa-Vahn
Summary: When you die and fate isn’t finished with you yet, that’s when you find out what true damnation really is. Cursed and alone for the first time in his existence Nuada discovers that even in your own personal hell there is always a spark of redemption.
1. Chapter 1

All of this is done for entertainment only, no infringement or disrespect intended. No intent of monetary gain at any time involving this material or copywrited characters. Any recognized characters belong to their respective owners and any you don't know are mine.

It was a tomb; nothing alive drew breath in this cursed place. Not even the skeletal wraith that drifted closer to the huge cogs. She moved with an unnatural ethereal fluidity that belied her bony body, inside the broken temple of war she strolled, her wings flexing in silent flight as she floated by the golden eggs. If any of the eggs still had life to watch would they recoil at her ghostly touch, or bow down in reverence to a far better bringer of death than even they. Not even the angel's shroud touched the floor, for past her knees she had faded to mist and time. Her duty on this plane was nearly done, the destroyer set upon his right path, the only force which could stop him now gone forever. Only one duty yet remained. Her desiccated lips pulled back in a snarling smile of satisfaction. She stilled and even motion died, her wings froze in their shifting and all of her stare was intent on one thing.

The pile of faded ocher sand on the temple floor.

Raising one hand she simply willed what she wanted to happen. Despair and loss filled the chamber as a soul was pulled back from the brink. A pale yellow and golden spark hovered above her hand, trapped against its will and broken from being separated from its other half. It was a small spark really she had seen such better ones in her time, not anything like the destroyers spark which glowed like a small sun roiling in such hues of red and black, violent to its core. But it was the spark which belonged, so it was the one which she would use. Almost disdainfully the angel dropped the spark into the sand and watched dispassionately as the sands whipped and whirled violently, twisting and rolling back on itself the shape writhed as the great wind chased the last grains back to the whole. Not even one speck would be allowed peace. The shape became a man, richly dressed in bone and cream it faded and softened until it was perfect again and then life rekindled in the darkness.

Nuada opened his eyes and then he roared. Rolling over onto his hands and knees he panted harshly, fire and pain filled his body with each breath; he could feel his wound with crippling clarity, his life's blood still escaping through the hole which ran straight to his heart. But that was nothing compared to the pain of loss that was eroding his soul. It was gone, his other half was gone. He couldn't feel her. Instinctively Nuada sat up to search for his sister, amber eyes racing the room over for her. There was a statue on the dais. His heart stopped. No it couldn't be. Nuala?

_No, it can't be, I'm alive so is she._ Wound forgotten he tried to stand.

Ice poured down his body straight into his bones, there was something else here. Then he saw her, looming over him black wings blotting out the light. Instantly his heart filled with iron, never in any of his thousands of years had he seen such a creature, but he knew exactly who she was. No soul ever forgets who pulled them from heaven to hell.

"What have you done, harpy." His voice was a rasp, barely nothing. Stronger Nuada sat back to stare at her hate filling his eyes and voice. The skeletal face smiled again, the towering angel crouched down to stare him in the face.

"What needed to be done, Prince." Her voice was sandpaper on dry leaves and it grated against his soul, abrading him raw from the inside out. Nuada gasped and collapsed, his body convulsing uncontrollably. Praying violently to the old gods for someone take pity on him and kill him. His eyes sought the demon desperately; surely not even he would let him suffer like this. The angel drew closer; Nuada screamed as every muscle in his body spasmed arching his back in unnatural ways. "Fate is not finished with you yet." His sunset eyes flickered to his sister's statue and the angel chuckled evilly. Reaching out for him she drug one claw down his chest over his heart scoring him deeply. "Search forever to find that which in the void was left behind, invisible now and forever to your own kind, sealed in fate to that you hate, cleft cleanly in two none but one will ever have you." Laughing the angel pierced his heart her finger burning her spell into the ice living in his body. "Welcome to penance Prince, we will not meet again." Then she was gone.

Nuada didn't know long he lay on the hall floor with pain and sweat pouring from every cell in his body. Chilled to the bone his stare was locked to his sister's body the whole time. Only one thought echoing through his mind over and over.

_What have I done?_

It was nearly three weeks before Nuada left Bethmora. His bone robes discarded into the pit of cogs much, much more bloodied than when the angel left him. He had lost count of how many prayers he had spoken in those weeks to let it end as he tried to die, his sword, and his spear all were useless just more ways to inflict agony on himself. The first time he had tried to fall on his spear, once he stopped screaming he had started all over again when he had to pull it out. Likewise with his sword, he had tried cutting his throat then, all that accomplished was to nearly decapitate himself. He couldn't speak for two weeks after that. He had begun to think it was his weapons which would not let him die. So to that he threw himself off the balcony into the depths. That was the worst pain yet. Lying crushed in body and bone at the bottom of the pit. He would be there still; broken body knitting back together in the dark if the troll smith hadn't found him.

Nuada remembered marveling at how much strength the old troll had in his half a body as he pulled the broken prince from the hole and carted him back to his hovel. In front of the fire finally warm except in his heart where the angel had touched him, Nuada watched the troll over the rim of his broken stone cup.

"That one's tricky she is, always up to something no one knows what. And most never will." The troll looked over back at the prince as he stirred the heavy kettle simmering on the coals. He was whole again; even the terrible gash that left his head bobbling was gone. For which he was grateful, he didn't relish watching gruel slither out of the hole. Nuada sighed and put down the cup. With a nod he stood and took the long trek back to Bethmora. When the troll smith saw him again he was dressed in his black armors and had his weapons returned to their places on his back. He knew with how he walked away he would never again see the elf. As he went by he saw the small pouch he knew held ochre ashes tucked into his sash.

"Goodbye king Nuada, and may your journeys lead you to peace." . The troll wished him well but in his heart he doubted Nuada would ever find his place again in this world, cursed by the angel of death into immortality never to be seen by his people again and to have half your soul given to a human. He was in his own hell. Nuada didn't acknowledge him but he knew he heard him all the same.


	2. Chapter 2

The sphere was spinning so fast it didn't even wobble as it danced. Over and over it ran from one slender tip to the next, idly watching the world he wasn't even interested in anymore. One image the same as the next and all of them as forgettable. No one called him anymore…because no one even _remembered_ him anymore. He was here and here was where he'd rot. Fingers gripped the orb harshly halting its dance and eclipsing it in a gauntlet of leather to shut out the monotony of it all. With a huff he yanked back his arm and started to send it into the depths. A flash flickered in the corner of his eye staying the crystals execution. There it was again the briefest glimpse, a mere fragment of a golden spark, and the memory of camaraderie.

_Nuada? _

He gripped it tighter willing it to show him more but the glass was dark. His power didn't reach that far into the human realm. On twisted spires where once sat a king a snowy owl suddenly took wing.

***

She was in a forest, huge trees in the full bloom of autumn that turned their canopy into flickers of fire in the gilded light of the sleepy sun. River laughed as she reached out to catch the dainty heart shaped leaves as they fell in a rain of lilting gold petals. She had never seen the like of this forest; it was so elementally different than those of her home. It was solid and old, ancient as the very bones of the earth their roots wound into. As if this was the first forest, the one made perfect by the gods and all others would never compare. Sturdy trunks wide as any redwood and nearly as tall with ribbons of amber twisting with all the darker earth tones of the wood made you know these trees were tied to the earth like no others. They were the anchor of the world. It was peaceful as she strolled through the grove. River smiled serenely as she wandered through this pleasant dream.

A wind blew against her face, pelting sharp speckles of amber against her cheeks as it changed turning the sweetness of it bitter on her tongue. Wiping her hands against her face she saw pale orange grains of sand stuck to her palm. They were slicing through the wind harshly to catch in her hair and sting her skin. River kept walking, but not far, the grove was smaller than she noticed. At its edge a desert stretched on forever, dry desolate and utterly dead. It was a cold place somewhere no one belonged. River stared backing away from the sands disturbed by it to the center of her soul. Beside her a tree trembled. It didn't even rustle or moan as it broke away from the one beside it, their braches tearing apart. It simply disintegrated. River screamed as the avalanche of glitter sluiced into the dessert giving the great dead thing greater sway. A face ghosted in the sand for a moment then was gone; a woman with bitter resignation etched across her tragically beautiful face and finally a sad smile which was the last to fade. Then she was gone, leaving the tree it had been twined with alone, separated from the others and surrounded by the sand that kept trying to erode away its roots. Even though the bark was thickened against the desserts onslaught River knew it wouldn't last long alone. Sentinels never do.

Terrible realization ate its way into her gut like she had swallowed lead. This wasn't an oasis in the dessert where life had bloomed; the too small grove was all that was _left_ against the dessert. This was a graveyard.

River was running, and with each step she slipped in the sand, sinking further and further as she fought to get back to the trees. Relief nearly made her weep as she touched ground and was into the thicket again her bare feet pounding as hard as they could. Panic stole her breath, there was something black racing her in the trees, always out of sight and it was getting closer.

River woke up screaming.

***

The woman flailed and tumbled out of bed violently screaming and fighting her coverlets as she struggled for consciousness. Her ravens hair and ebony eyes both wild with fright as she finally stood and raced for the window. Throwing it open she panted harshly dragging in vast lungfuls of night air, tears coursing down her cheeks the whole time. He watched her for the long moments it took for her mind to calm. She truly was a visage, golden skin and supple arms crossed over her thin cotton shirt and her full bosom as she sat in the windowsill just staring out at the night. Her long legs were bare and the moon traced her honey skin in silver, turning her into some exotic nightingale. The moon was high before she finally returned to her bed and sleep.

Soft ecru wings sent him sailing into her bower to alight on her nightstand. Huge black glassy eyes winked in the darkness catching even the slightest detail. Less than a heartbeat later a richly dressed man knelt at her bedside. His eyes still as shrewd as he reached out to grasp an obsidian lock of her hair in his hand, his gloves vanishing in its darkness as he lifted it to his nose. The perfume was there, yet so subtle it was nearly invisible. Eventually she succumbed to slumber and truly rested. Oddly enough at the exact moment Nuada's soul finally settled into hers.

_Now this is interesting indeed. _

Jareth stood and in a swirl of his cloak the fae was gone, now the owl had something to hunt.


	3. Chapter 3

She was like a wraith through the trees, no nothing as insubstantial as that for she was far too warm and alive to be a ghost; although ghost she was, one who haunted him every time he slipped into slumber. When he slept it was as if he simply stepped from his chamber to the ancient grove with every detail was as sharp and as real as any of his other senses. Every moment as sharp as if awake, and still all he had were the barest glimpses of black silk floating like a cloud in the eternal autumn breezes. Split second glances of a fleeting golden shadow darting in and out of the tree like a doe her supple buckskin dress camouflaging her against the trees as she ran from him. Every dammed detail about her only aided her to hide from him. With every second he spent sleeping he failed to rest as he hunted her.

She was right to run, she didn't belong here.

Night after night his chase started again, hours spent in the golden forest with only the hunt on his mind. Tonight was no different she was still just shadows and mist. Nuada stopped and closed his eyes inhaling deeply to taste the wind. This was their same dance except for one thing… he was closer. His ears told him of her whispering passage to his left, his nose scented her fear as she fled. He was close enough to feel her fear.

He could feel her. _Just like he had Nuala._

Dropping his head down Nuada was taken aback as her soul brushed by his. His skin prickled and his chest felt full as if his heart were finally right again. _Whole_. He was whole again. His fingers slid up his chest to press against his heart as if he could touch the part he missed so keenly and keep it inside somehow. But with every breath it was fading. His hand was trembling. Fear of the hollowness shivered up his spine as he felt the thread pull, taking what it was to be elf away again. Swallowing hard Nuada calmed and focused on that thread as he had done so oft with Nuala. He could feel her, inside his mind she was a spark floating in the darkness. She was so warm where he was cursed to be cold. Resentment flooded his forced calm. She was human and no longer hollow, only because she had what was his. He could feel the other part of his soul almost touch it. Jealousy and anger returned his clarity. The details which had hidden her all these many months blossomed for him like a flower.

She was startled, _why_? Reaching deeper along the link he saw the image which troubled her so greatly. A shadow poised in the clearing, stark black and white against the gold of the glen, aura brimming with menace. Nuada's eyes flew open and narrowed as his smile smeared his features with malice. Laughing he turned on his heel and sprinted straight across the glen he was standing in. She had seen _him_.

Something clinked.

Nuada's eyes flared open in the darkness, cursing in elvish he sat up. His spear thrummed happily where it vibrated in the wall across the room from his throw. A piteous whine grated against his ears as he watched the imp dangle from the scraps of human clothing it had scrounged. The creature was no taller than his knee with its bulbous head being its largest feature over its froglike emaciated body. It stood shaking lidless eyes bulging beyond normal where it stood pinned against the second step.

"You should know better than to ever wake me." Swinging his legs from his bedding Nuada stood and walked over to the wall to retrieve his spear. With a smooth yank the point came free in a rain of dust and pulverized stone to coat the imp in even more filth, dropping the scour imp to the floor he scowled down at the creature. "You have something to tell me yes?" Still shaking the imp stuttered three words in troll.

"Tratih est dun_"_ _Elves in the market._

Nuada was watching them closely. There were four, one tracker and three hunters. Their crests clear on their cloaks and gauntlets, Minor houses really no great skills to note. Except for one hunter, him he recognized. Banrir. That one had been in the throne room when he had come for the crown. Supreme sadness flickered in his eyes for just an instant before they locked on the crest of the house of Cloven. _One of the royal assassins._

"We've searched the market, the trolls are lying. King Nuada is not here."

Nuada snorted, _amateurs_, they couldn't have looked too hard they didn't even find his chambers. Not easily seen by anyone if he didn't wish it Nuada stepped from the shadows not even bothering to hide. To the onlooker he casually strolled up to the others and relaxed against the pillar beside the four. It would take a trained eye to see the fine tension that sang through is body. These were the first elves he had seen since Bethmora. And they'd been sent to kill him. That fact alone cut deeper than any of the quartet could ever manage with a blade.

Banrir looked up and down the way his hard gaze shrewd as it devoured the markets details, his sallow eyes missing nothing until they slid right over Nuada who stood no less than a bowslengh away. There was a strange mix of trepidation, impending violence, and strangely hope on his their king's features, but they didn't see them. They couldn't.

"Trolls!" Banrir hissed and turned his back on the market. The others followed him. Nuada didn't move for a very long time as he watched them go.

***

The wall trembled just a little. Pale blue eyes in a withered face jerked towards it. The dwarf's brows slinking down as he scowled at the edifice. Little clouds of dust shook free from the arched bridge over his head. Heavy footsteps clomped again from above knocking down more dust.

"Hurmph. Heavy monsters mucking about all the time." Mumbling the dwarf pulled out a ratty scarf and dusted off the carved box tops littering his stands. His stare kept flitting to the wall behind him as he muttered about.

_Can't be I'm imagining things, it aint moved in twenty years._

The boxes cooed and chitterd excitedly, little 'oh' sounds coming out of the carved holes. Irritably the dwarf smacked the largest box with the scarf then kicked the one under the table. Tiny choirs of screams echoed out as it tumbled over. Grouching and muttering under his breath about pests he bent over and righted it again. Behind him the wall started shaking. Spinning around the dwarf shook his head vehemently as he tried to back up against his stall.

"NO, NO. It can't be. NOT HIM!"

The wall shook until bricks fell out, reveling old wooden beams thick as man, grotesquely and intricately carved all at the same time with Goblins and wild things frolicking over its ancient surface. It was a door. The old oak groaned split down the center and swung out, coughing up a plume of dust that choked everything as it clouded over the market. Behind the door was an even more ancient wall which wrapped in and around itself countless times in reckless curves, impossible angles and possible paths which went on and on forever.

The labyrinth.

A figure stood arms resting rakishly on either door, pale dove gray breeches clinging to his lithe body boots gleaming sharply in the low light, and pristine white shirt all spotless as if the dust wouldn't dare settle on the Trickster.

His smile was pure mischief and wicked as a gremlin with twice ten over the evil ideas of one.

"Hello, Hegword" Jareth's voice was cultured and smooth as alabaster as he strut out of the gateway to the underground.

"HOGGLE!" the dwarf shouted shaking his fist at the highborn fae who cocked an eyebrow at his boxes. Planting one finger beside his nose Jareth looked down at the stand with keen interest.

"I dare say Higgle. These aren't faries from my labyrinth are they?"

"No, no they're not. There my faires from my boxes. SO scram. I don't owe you an explanation or anything else for that matter. Not anymore." Hoggle shouted the last of his rant, his hate for the king blinding him to the subtle shift and the dangerous tilt to his smile.

"No you don't owe me anything now do you. Nothing as simple as your life which I so graciously let you keep after your treasons. Well then I suppose I don't owe you anything either." Turning on his heel Jareth kicked the table sending all the boxes to the ground in a crash. Faires escaped in a flurry of white petal dresses and dainty wings as their diminutive bodies swirled their king in a riot of ivory. Turning away Jareth started strolling into the market his humor tainted with the wickedness which lived in his eyes. "Oh and girls don't forget to thank Hoggle for his hospitality before you go home." The faires switched direction and it was only moments before the screams began.

With his every step into the market doors closed and shops went dark as the Goblin king made his way by. His chuckle sent even the most resolute troll back into the darker corners. Pausing to pluck an apple from a basket he started humming to himself merrily his eyes catching those of the map maker across the walk. The maker froze in terror.

Well even if the world had forgotten him it was nice to know some still trembled at his name. The market grew in the shadow of his labyrinth and enough here were refugees from his lands that his legend had lasted. His stare pinned the map master against the wall behind him. Sometimes it was good to be king.

"I suppose you know who I am looking for." Jareth purred as he took a bite of apple. The castlewright nodded emphatically. Jareth smiled and tossed the apple over his shoulder. "Well then which way." He said impatiently. Shaking violently the castlewright almost fell over himself to lead the king to his quarry.


End file.
